


Post-Arc

by Transistance



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Circus Arc (Kuroshitsuji), F/M, Late Night Conversations, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 00:11:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13282815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transistance/pseuds/Transistance
Summary: William arrives home after a month in the field, having completed the Noah's Arc Circus assignment. He's met by the only person he should have expected.





	Post-Arc

The subtle ache of fatigue permeated through every cell in William's body – for all a reaper's innate resilience it had been a long month, physically and emotionally taxing even for him. His house seemed cold and unfamiliar after so long sitting empty, and as he hung his jacket over the peg in the porch he wondered if it would be easy to return to work the next morning as though he had never been away at all. His employees wouldn't have missed him, not unless their temporary head was impossibly hard going, but to settle back into the motions of paper-pushing after so long in the field could be unsettling at first. Still, he would adapt. Re-immerse himself and forget.

The soft glow of a lamp spread like a stain from behind the door of his lounge, either a welcome home or a warning light. Who would come all the way out here to speak to him – especially knowing that he had been away? If Upper Management wanted more done then they would have sent a pigeon rather than a courier, and William had very few friends who'd want to celebrate his return.

Very few. Almost none. Well, maybe one – in fact, given that criteria, it wasn't difficult to make an educated guess as to who had crept into his parlour at this time of night.

Pushing open the door – slowly, and gently enough to avoid the creak – he found his suspicions correct. Grell lay sprawled across an armchair, her legs hanging loose over one side and her shoulders against the other. The red lamp behind her cast her hair a deep orange, closer to a sunset than its usual wildfire; her features were shadowed, absorbed in what had to be a book on her lap. Grell was not supposed to be there. They hadn't spoken since that night in Whitechapel, with the demon, the baroness; Grell's own deep and steeping sin.

She only looked up when the door clicked closed behind William; her eyes widened minutely before a smile split her face, all mischievous affection and bright, eager excitement. She wasn't supposed to react like that after three months' absent lack of interaction – but then, much of that was circumstantial. Perhaps this was the first real chance that they had had to talk. “You're here at last, lover. I was beginning to fear that you'd gotten lost.”

For a moment the familiarity in her tone stopped him dead; all the evening's cruelties seemed abolished in light of Grell's warmth. But the bitterness flooded back easily, and William found himself scowling as he knelt to untie his shoes. “I don't recall giving you a key to my house.”

“No, you wouldn't.” He could still hear her smile, and was unsurprised to find it remaining, lazy and gentle, on her lips even in the face of his annoyance when he stood again. “I had to go out and acquire it in my own time – after I discovered that you keep your spare with your _secretary_ , it was a menial task to relieve her of it. It seemed hardly fair that some broad you've known barely a decade should have such access when _I_ don't, don't you think?”

“Hm.” He stepped forward, half an idea in his head to move to the kitchen and find a drink before dealing with Grell, but as he moved closer more of Grell's body became visible; what he had thought before a trick of the light resolved itself into a far too recent ghost. “That coat-”

For a second something akin to panic overtook Grell's face, but it died back as quickly as it had come. “It's mine now. A garment this lovely? It would be a crime to let it go to waste, as if it were nothing...” Her voice disappeared somewhere between that word and the next, and to William's surprise she kicked her legs forward and used the momentum to push herself up over the arm of the chair, her hair pulling out behind her and the crimson jacket moving with her body as though bound by the skin. For a moment Grell balanced there, resting rocking, and then she stood. “Then and again, I wouldn't expect _you_ to understand – a whole _month_ , in that awful thing?” Her eyes rested on his lapels, and it took a moment to understand what she had said. Less than a moment further to understand what that meant.

“It's a suit,” he replied shortly. “I fail to see anything wrong with it.”

“Evid _en_ tly. Alright Suit; so staunch, st _ead_ fast in your work...” Two steps took her within arms' reach, and Grell circled William, not meeting his gaze. “I heard you shared a tent with the demon himself, my dark prince – for _all_ that time?”

“I couldn't sleep due to his presence.” It was true, and one of the lighter reasons that he was so tired now, but Grell finally looked him in the face.

“Ooh.” She shivered; licked her lips, eyes glinting. “What I wouldn't have given to know what you two got up to in there. Why, had I been but a fly on the wall to y-”

“Don't.” William's gorge rose sharply, and he pushed Grell away – not hard enough, unfortunately, to prevent her from taking his forearm in her hand and pulling herself close enough that she was almost embracing him, looking up with eyes all too innocent for the scene that she had just evoked. “Your trouble is that you never know when to let go. You know what I've been through, you know what happened, you horror – stop.”

She was too close. He could smell the other woman's perfume still lingering on the coat, stifling Grell's own scent and casting her more akin to a stranger than the usual superfluous annoyance. Stop she did, miraculously; Grell held her silence and the world was still as she watched him, the only thing detracting from the sombre atmosphere her obnoxious glasses, and the fact that William was close enough to see the slight creasing in her makeup.

“Kiss me,” she murmured. “It'll make you feel better.”

“You think so.” Not quite a question.

“I promise.” 

It was a ghost from another time, her lips upon his; years had passed since he'd last kissed her. It was brief but, to William's mild chagrin, did make him feel better.

As they broke away, still too close but no longer touching, words began to fall from Grell; drawn forth perhaps by the assertion that he did not hate her and edged with haste. “I saw what he did to her, I saw what he did to them-”

“I know.”

“-Their souls were fine. All present and accounted for; not tainted enough to be denied passage on. Did the other two escape?”

The other two – the ringleader and the freckled girl, known only by their stage names to both the world and to themselves. William had collected their records without incident, having detached himself enough that he could ignore the suggestion in his mind to step down from the spire and kill the demon himself. “No – they died the same evening.” He paused, and then added quietly, “Thank you for taking care of the rest.

“Of course!” Grell swatted at him, shooing the gratitude away, and suddenly the room was large enough again. “That said, I also had to put up with seeing you _multiple_ times in _that_ garish, hideous outfit – if you were having wardrobe dilemmas you should have come to me, you know that!” This was followed by a tut, short and soft, and she brushed his shoulder as though to clear it of dust. “You're not – dwelling on it, are you, dear?”

“Not so much.” The circus troupe had been listed humans, dead on schedule, and William had put some effort into hostility in an attempt to detach himself, yet still – “They were kind to me, far kinder than I was to them. They had no business being so. But it's always the same with tasks like this; there is such a difference between watching their lives after they are dead and watching them knowing that they are going to die.” It didn't do to express this thought to other reapers; on par with weakness, it came too close to rendering one incapable or at least unreliable in their filed of work. But Grell knew anyway, and William was too tired to be distant.

“Like the exam, then. You _are_ fragile, love.” Grell tapped his chest with one fingernail, not quite in the vicinity of his heart, and the truth of the accusation held. “I don't understand it so much; I knew Anne would die from the moment I met her, but that wasn't sad.”

Taking her hand in his to remove it from himself, William measured her words. “She wasn't on the list.”

“And yet it was obvious still.” A slight change crossed Grell's face, her eyebrows drawing together and mouth tightening minutely before she relaxed into a faux-natural smile. The next question, when it came, was soft. “Do you fear me? You saw what I did, with her. To her.”

Not fear; not quite. “No. You are a monster, but that's nothing new.” The artificial smile faltered slightly. “The circumstances were against your vision, it seemed – would you kill _it_ , that demon, given the chance now?”

He'd seen how Grell spoke to the thing, and in keeping with that image she did brighten at his mention. “Ooh, Will, that'd be rule breaking... I doubt the opportunity will come, but probably. Probably! There is nothing so graceful an art as that of a battle 'twist heaven and hell, and I am happy to play the executioner for how he twisted her.” Her hands were back, casting the air into black staccato shapes as she made a half spin on her heel which cumulated in a two handed stabbing motion. “I think you would have liked Anne, you know.”

“I doubt it.” Dallas had seemed everything William disliked about Grell combined with a large portion of what William disliked about humans, and the thought seemed more a willing misjudgement than serious suggestion until Grell insisted. 

“Really – she had drive, my passion but your perseverance, and all the poise and skill you could ask for. Ruthless, full of momentum, right up until she... wasn't. Sebastian gave her that weakness. Se _bas_ tian, with all that charm and that unwanted, unexpected child...” She trailed off naturally, and then ventured, “Not large issues, in the grand scheme of things.” 

After a consideration William nodded agreement. “Not large issues, no, but you are allowed nonetheless to feel for them.”

“Funny to hear that from you.” Grell's head tipped as though balancing options, taking stock of the night, and then leaned forward and caught William in an awkward hug. She was not quite short enough to tuck her head beneath his chin but tried anyway, and after letting out his breath in a huff William reciprocated, just. A faceful of red hair was a small price to pay for the quiet that the conversation had ushered in – although perhaps that was mere fatigue.

Grell sighed softly and contentedly into his chest, and William wondered not for the first time why she felt so at ease around him. The words he found were true and no secret; “You are trouble, Grell Sutcliff.”

“Of course.” He could tell that she was smiling again, sallow and coy and all too smug. “That, my love, is why I'm perfect for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey, I'm about for a wee while - going to try to finish off things that are floating in my drafts folder rather than starting anything new. Hopefully will be able to get a few out before term starts up again. Feedback is welcome!


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